A few high profile Republican U.S. Senators introduced S. 182, Learning Opportunities Created at the Local (LOCAL) Level Act, on January 16th, which would amend the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (EASA) to prohibit federal education mandates. The bill has been referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Sponsored by Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS) and co-sponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), James Inhofe (R-OK) and Ohio’s Rob Portman, S. 182 seeks to preserve state and local control of schools by prohibiting the federal government from using mandates, grants, waivers, and incentives to coerce states into adopting education standards, curricula, or inteferring in a state’s assessment systems.

“Setting high standards for our schools, our teachers and our children is the right thing to do, but those standards should be decided in Kansas, without bribes or mandates from Washington. We need to get the federal government out of the classroom, and return community decisions back to where they belong – in the community.”

“Decisions about education curriculum should be made at the local or state level – not from Washington. Having a one-size-fits-all Washington approach to education is harmful to our children and to our education system. We should allow states and local communities the flexibility to innovate and make their own education decisions. The federal government does have a key supporting role to play in improving our workforce, and I have led efforts to streamline and improve our worker retraining programs while giving states additional flexibility.”

The Common Core Standards were thrust upon the states through the Race to the Top grants included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Cash-strapped states and local school districts flocked to the grants as a way to secure extra education dollars giving up local control of schools in the process.

What states and school districts did not account for were the onerous mandates in the RTT grants which led to the significant investment of local dollars to rewrite curriculum, retrain teachers, adopt new assessment regimes, and upgrade systems to track and share private student data. See “Common Core Isn’t Free: How Much Has Your School District Spent?”

Local school districts are still grappling with how to implement and manage the myriad of mandates in the RTT grants. And parents are left marginalized and concerned by the loss of local control, the increase in standardized testing, and the loss of student privacy.

The LOCAL Level Act recognizes that federal education grants and mandates can put significant operational and financial pressure on school districts.

In his press release, Senator Inhofe outlines the bill’s objectives which include,

“…the Secretary of Education should only issue those regulations, rules, guidance materials, grant conditions, or other requirements that are specifically needed to implement federal legislation and are within LEAs’ educational, operational, and financial capacity.” (Emphasis added.)

Efforts to oppose the federal manipulation of states’ educational systems have been alive in the U.S. Senate for several years.

In April 2013, shortly after the RNC issued a resolution opposing the Common Core Standards, Grassley sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds education asking that language be included in the 2014 appropriations bill to prohibit the Secretary of Education to use funds to develop education standards or to award grants and make other conditions to coerce states into accepting standards or assessments. Eight senators joined Grassley in that effort: Mike Lee, Tom Coburn, James, Inhofe, Deb Fischer, Rand Paul, Pat Roberts, Jeff Sessions, and Ted Cruz.

In February 2014, Senator Lindsey Graham sponsored a resolution which denounced the Obama administration’s use of grants and waivers to coerce states into accepting Common Core. Chuck Grassley, Tim Scott, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, James Inhofe, Thad Cochran, Roger Wicker, and Mike Enzi joined as co-sponsors.

Perhaps more traction can be made on reining in the federal government on matters related to education now that Republicans are in control of the House and Senate.

However, with many Republicans on board with Common Core, such as our own Governor John Kasich, and Republican power-broker, former Florida Governor and presidential hopeful Jeb Bush, the jury is still out on where the Republican Party stands on local control of schools.

We trusted our State Republican Representatives to pass Anti-Common Core Legislation in 2014, “right after the elections”, and they let it die.

With Republicans like Gov. Kasich and Gov. Bush on the side of the Common Core, I fully expect to be hearing again and again all of the reasons that our Representatives and our Senators cannot do what is best for the American people and for our children.

The time to give money to the Republicans is AFTER they have performed, After they have Blocked Common Core, NOT before as they have proven that to support hem in advances a Fool’s errand.

Mark David Mattingly
January 20, 2015 at 8:17 am

I agree with Roy Wagner’s comment above.

Rob Portman is desperate to appear Conservative after his endorsement of Homosexual Marriage. Portman is nothing but a Big Government RINO and he knows that this move will be something he can run on in the next election. He doesn’t care if we get stuck with Common Core or not as long as he can get reelected.

Precinct 85
January 20, 2015 at 12:54 pm

I disagree with fellow Republicans who are tea party activists that have gathered about 70 central committee members, elected in the 2014 May Primary in what was a hidden agenda to take over the Warren County Republican Party to indoctrinate central committee members to join the Warren County tea party activists and Warren County Right to Life activists in beating down our Ohio Republican elected officials, at the November 2014 polls, as punishment for their failures to repeal common core and vote into authority of law the heartbeat bill.

The Warren County GOP executive chairman has been asked to volunteer to step down from leadership of our Warren County Republican Party because of a conflict of interest that he has, as the leader of the Warren County Liberty Council. During public meeting, In Liberty, Ray Warrick told elected central committee members that the Liberty Council meeting was his meeting, and he could say and do anything that he wanted; and that if elected central committee members did not like it, they could leave. Some of the attendees left after Ray Warrick announced that he would be voting for the Ohio Democrat candidate for Governor, and not for our Ohio Governor’s re-election; And at another meeting of the Warren County GOP Executive Board/Central Committee members meeting, Ray Warrick allowed a motion out of order to be brought to the floor for vote to un-endorse the Ohio Governor, even though this Subject item was not on
the scheduled agenda that had been sent to all members; and Ray Warrick’s instructions are that no subjects will be considered at his Warren County GOP executive board meetings that are not submitted to him in advance and included in the printed agenda.

Since the Warren County tea party activists and Ray Warrick’s special interest group has taken over majority vote of about 70 central committee members who showed up at the organization meeting (out of 240 Warren County precincts), The Warren County GOP board has now closed our HQ; and have now turned inward of themselves as the combined tea party/right to life activists warring against fellow citizens and shutting out the participation of all Warren County Republicans who oppose Ray Warrick’s agenda of beating down our Republican elected officials. And as central committee member who opposed Ray Warrick’s leadership, I have received bullying e-mails from Warren County GOP board members mocking me for working as a volunteer in my neighborhood precinct campaigning door to door for the re-election of our Ohio Republican Governor.

Warren County Central Committee members who continue asking Ray Warrick to volunteer to step down from executive board chairman, because of his conflict of interest in publicly announcing his intentions to vote for the Democrat candidate for Governor, are still wondering why Ray Warrick feels so strongly that punishing elected officials by voting against them allows any incentive or encouragement at all for our
elected officials to vote for the demands of the tea party/right to life Republican activists? The way I see it,
all Warren County residents are being punished by Ray Warrick’s agenda against our Ohio Republican elected officials because why should Taxpayers dollars be rewarded to Warren County voters before Warren County voters VOTE for our Ohio Republican elected officials?

Nuts Running The Asylum
January 22, 2015 at 4:01 pm

Ray Warrick threatened to vote for the Democratic candidate for governor? You mean there was a difference between John Kasich and Ed FitzGerald? I didn’t vote for either of them.

Katherine
January 20, 2015 at 7:01 pm

While the LOCAL Level Act might sound encouraging to some, Mr. Portman’s words make me skeptical of his intent, and his underlying belief: “Allow … flexibility”? “…giving states additional flexibility”? These comments are based in the idea that all power is in D.C. and it belongs to the power brokers there to parse it out as they please. It’s not his or anyone-in-D.C.’s to “allow” or “give.” It’s already ours.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. ”

If Mr. Portman seriously wanted to restore state and local control, he would fight for the elimination of the U.S. Dept of Ed and all national legislation dealing with all matters that constitutionally are left to the states (which includes everything related to education and worker retraining).

I think it’s fair to say that our elected Republican “representatives” told us what we wanted to hear just long enough for us to keep their behinds in their government seats and then, once the threat of being removed from those seats was gone it was back to business as usual. They’re hoping that conservative voters forget all about their lies in the upcoming two years so that they can lie again during the next election and promise all the things, like repealing Common Core, that they have no intention of doing. They should have been forced to bring the Common Core repeal bill to the floor of the House for a vote BEFORE the election but instead we let them heehaw around until it was too late to hold them accountable.

FREE Newsletter and Gun Raffle information.

Ohio Liberty Coalition
PO Box 427
Tiffin, OH 44883-0427

(740) 837-4593
Fax: (216) 342-1147

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed here are not necessarily those of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, its board members or affiliated groups but are solely the opinions of the contributors that appear on this site.